Wind energy has more opposition than most people realize, and Elsner, who has served as the “third party” in the AWEA strategy, has allowed us to find one another. While a few attendees at the DC meeting were concerned about all the publicity, attorney Brad Tupi, who has represented citizens victimized by wind energy projects, responded: “I would plead guilty to participating in a meeting of concerned citizens opposed to wasteful, unproven, inefficient wind energy. I would agree that we are interested in coordinating with other reputable organizations, and I personally would be honored to work with Heartland Institute and others.”

If you do not support industrial, tax-payer-funded, wind-energy projects that are promoted based on ideology and emotion rather than facts and sound science, you can benefit from our affiliation. Droz has a wonderful presentation full of helpful information. A few of the websites from the meeting attendees include: Illinois Wind Watch, Coalition for Sensible Siting, Energy Integrity Project, and Citizen Power Alliance.

The lesson to be learned from the attack on these hard-working citizens is that the little people can make a difference!  We’ve got the subsidy-seeking, wind-energy supporters running scared—along with the crony capitalism that accompanies them.  Remember, “If the PTC just disappears”—meaning if we do not keep giving them taxpayer dollars—“then the industry will collapse.” Your phone call or email to a Senator or Congressman, such as Steve King or Dave Reichert who recently came out in support of the PTC, can make a difference. Tell them, as the WSJ said, “If the party is serious about tax reform…it will vote to take wind power off the taxpayer dole.”

Old coal power plants need to stay in operation or Germany’s power grid faces collapse. That is the warning of Germany’s national grid agency. Because the danger of blackouts is growing as a result of the shut-down of six nuclear power plants last year, the Federal Network Agency is proposing to suspend legal emission limits for plants.

It sounds paradoxical: The green energy transition in Germany doesn’t seem viable without polluting fossil fuel power stations.

Because the danger of blackouts is growing as a result of the shut-down of six nuclear power plants last year, the Federal Network Agency is proposing to suspend legal emission limits for plants.

Old power stations, which are due to be shut down due to their high environmental impact, should continue to operate. "Closures of more conventional power plants are currently not feasible in Germany," it says literally in the grid agency’s report: "Given the present and future tense situation, it is necessary to suspend closures due to the emissions reduction law."

Ending industrial wind subsidies is a quadruple win:  it fosters real jobs, promotes economic growth, protects endangered species, and elevates environmental values over image-making.

The public is coming to this view, not only energy realists.  In the face of repeated efforts to extend (seemingly perpetual) wind energy subsidies by industry lobbyists, taxpayers and grass root environmentalists have said:  ENOUGH.

Informed and inspired by a loose but growing national coaltion of groups opposed to more giveaways with no scientifically proven net benefits, thousands of citizens called their senators and representatives - and rounded up enough Nay votes to run four different bills aground.  For once, democracy worked..."

LePage mentioned energy as another key topic when he was making his way through various towns in Penobscot County.

“Mainers are paying $326 million per year above the average American for our energy,” said LePage.

He targeted wind power as a major contributor for that high number.

“It’s a big number.  Why?  Because we have some groups in Maine that are greedy.  We have people in Maine who say that wind is the answer. And it is the answer for people who lobby for wind,” said LePage. “Wind is costing us dearly.  It’s costing us jobs, it’s costing us investment and it’s costing us big.”

He also took a shot at former governor Angus King, who is running for U.S. senate.

Meacham followed by asking if the upcoming election matters.  Pickens responded, “Obama, his hands are tied.  He’s got the greenies and the Left, but nobody accuses me of not being green.  I’m in the wind business…I’ve lost my ass in the business.”

Host Joe Scarborough said laughing, “You’ve invested more in alternative energy than anybody else.”

“Exactly,” replied Pickens.  “My issue is not political.  I mean, this is an opportunity for America to advance, get on the back of cheap energy and recover your economy.  It can be done, but we have no plan.”

It looks as though the wind energy boom is over. UK energy minister Greg Barker has hinted at a significant change in government strategy - cutting subsidies for the deployment and operation of environmentalists’ favoured technologies.

The climate change minister hinted that R&D handouts would continue, but for the wind lobby the party appears to be over…

Barker says the policy he inherited from Labour was "unbalanced" – but after the coalition was elected in 2010, the administration continued it with gusto, outlining plans for 10,000 industrial onshore wind turbines and 22,000 offshore.

Until now.

“There is a requirement to rethink the economics of green. We have to have a more nuanced and sophisticated policy. Basically, that means reducing costs quicker, looking to commercialise sooner, and thinking more carefully about the use of public subsidy,” said Barker…

Not all renewable energy is inefficient and operationally expensive – but wind carries huge penalties over conventional sources.  In addition to a high capital cost, particularly hooking them up to the grid, wind produces electricity when it isn’t needed and often fails to produce it when it is

There is little point building more wind turbines above a certain point: after that stage, not only will they miss out on revenue by often being at low output when demand is high, but they will also miss out by producing unsaleable surplus electricity at times of low demand. The economic case for wind – already unsupportable without the ROC scheme – will become even worse, and wind will require still more government support.

In Coconino County, Arizona, Arizona Public Service – the energy utility that provides power to millions of Arizona residents – has announced that it will not be buying any more power from local wind farms. Apparently, the wind farms have been a complete bust, producing energy at a low rate and charging a high one…

A recent lengthy report by Reuters confirms what many conservatives have long known:  President Obama's promise to create millions of so-called "green jobs" has been a colossal and expensive failure.

A few highlights from the report:

The article also highlights the degree to which Obama's big jobs promises have fallen flat.  For example, in 2008, Obama promised that "investing" $150 billion taxpayer dollars would create 5 million jobs over 10 years.   Obama and Vice President Joe Biden's past green jobs statements now read like punchlines:

"We'll put nearly half a million people to work building wind turbines and solar panels, constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings, and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to new jobs," he said at a wind-turbine plant in Ohio the day before he took office.

In December 2009, Vice President Joe Biden said the effort would create 722,000 green jobs.

China, the world’s biggest wind-power market, issued plans that may indicate it will approve fewer of the projects this year than it did in 2011…

Authorities began tightening approval for projects last year after rapid growth of capacity led some wind farms to produce less power than they were capable of either because the electricity generated exceeded demand or because transmission lines couldn’t safely carry it…

Six months after the expiration of a federal loan guarantee program that backed $16 billion in loans to solar, wind and geothermal energy projects, the Energy Department has decided to offer a smaller set of similar guarantees by tapping another pot of money appropriated by Congress last year.

The department said Thursday that it had sent letters to potentially eligible companies inviting them to apply for the new money.

Under the other program, which was passed as part of the 2009 stimulus legislation, about three dozen companies that had applied for loan guarantees were told that they would not receive guarantees because the department had been unable to finish reviewing their applications before the program expired on Sept. 30, 2011.

Now, the department is saying that the companies can reapply under a loan guarantee program established under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that is still in force.

Usually, applicants under the 2005 program have to pay a fee upfront, called a credit subsidy, to compensate the government for the risk it runs by guaranteeing such a loan. Those fees can be costly, and few companies have applied. But the Energy Department said on Thursday that it had $170 million, approved under the budget deal of April 2011, that it would use to pay all or part of those subsidies.

The following broad summary is provided in the public interest from leaked information, the accuracy of which is attested to by the AWEA’s having demanded the removal of the original material as a copyright violation…

Regional Campaigns

Efforts are focused on establishing, defending, and increasing state renewable/clean energy portfolio standard requirements to favor wind (e.g., by excluding large hydro).

Other efforts include ensuring that siting regulations benefit developers, convincing utilities and regulators that wind provides reliable and economical capacity, and pleading with them to expand transmission and change the rules to benefit wind.

Local efforts also include contesting landscape, wildlife, and health protection rules as "not based on science"...

On Monday, yet another Department of Energy funded solar energy company –the world’s largest solar power plant—filed for bankruptcy...

The Oakland-based company has held rights for the 1,000-megawatt Blythe Solar Power Project in the Southern California desert, which last April won $2.1 billion of conditional loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy…

The Reuters story states that the company won the loan, but as the Washington Post reported that the company turned down the loan in late September of 2011.  The CEO of Solar Trust, Uwe T. Schmidt thought that the loan was "too risky".  The Obama administration was willing to loan more than two billion taxpayer dollars to a company who was unwilling to take that kind of risk.  The company's bankruptcy filings indicate they employed only nine people.

Windmill developers will no longer enjoy lower tax outgo in the first year, for investing in windmills.

Effective April 1, accelerated depreciation – which allows the investing company to fast track the write-off of certain assets for tax purposes - will not be allowed to wind energy developers...

According to Mr Hemal Zobalia, Tax Partner at KPMG India, quite a few investors took to wind energy development for the sake of enjoying tax breaks. This could be one reason behind scrapping the incentive.

Up to 2009-10, average wind energy utilisation was as low as 18 per cent, when they could have been scaled up to 30 per cent, that is the norm for the industry.

It was therefore believed that many developers neglected their farms or ran them ineffectively once they got the tax benefit...

...Supporting fair competition on the energy market is one thing, but we can’t believe PURPA was intended to give one energy source a stranglehold on ratepayers who have few other choices.  And the problem is that Idaho Power’s network has plenty of energy; with the current market, it often must sell the wind power at a loss...

...Wind developers are clearly gaming the existing PURPA system, and ratepayers shouldn’t be forced to spend millions extra on them — especially fresh out of a recession.

641 federal programs throw taxpayer money at windmills and solar panels

...The Government Accountability Office (GAO) counted a whopping 641 programs in place at 130 federal agencies in 2010 to prop up windmill technology and underwrite solar panel manufacturers...

The report released Tuesday didn’t include a reliable estimate of the total cost to taxpayers. The auditors found the array of loans, tax credits, agency purchases of purportedly green vehicles and the cost of regulations would take a great deal of effort to tally…

Wind power made sense in the 18th century, but it doesn’t make sense now. The private sector isn’t interested in blowing money on hopelessly uneconomic windmill and solar projects…

China will accelerate the use of new-energy sources such as nuclear energy and put an end to blind expansion in industries such as solar energy and wind power in 2012, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao says in a government report published on March 5...

…This means China will pay more attention to the utilization of new energy, hence wind power and solar power, which failed to achieve sound utilization, will bid farewell to the era of fast development, said Zhai Ruoyu, former general manager of the China Datang Corp., one of China's five power giants…

 …Meanwhile, the operating hours of wind power generating units plunged by 144 hours in 2011 despite an increase of 48.16 per cent in on-grid wind power output.

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) is the ranking Republican on the Appropriations subcommittee dealing with environmental issues. He is currently working to end subsidies for wind power, an energy source that he dubs “a scam.”

“We don’t have the money” to continue the subsidies, Alexander told Heritage in our latest segment of In the Green Room.  “It’s a puny amount of electricity,” he added, “and it’s destroying the environment in the name of saving the environment.”

Republicans Blow With the Wind
Another industry wants to keep its taxpayer subsidies

3/07/2012, The Wall Street Journal

Congress finally ended decades of tax credits for ethanol in December, a small triumph for taxpayers. Now comes another test as the wind-power industry lobbies for a $7 billion renewal of its production tax credit.

Because wind-powered electricity is so expensive, more than half of the 50 states have passed renewable energy mandates that require utilities to purchase wind and solar power a de facto tax on utility bills. And don't forget subsidies to build transmission lines to deliver wind power to the electric grid.

Even that may be too optimistic because of the natural gas boom that has produced a happy supply shock and cut prices by more than half. Most economic models forecasting that renewable energy will become price competitive are based on predictions of natural gas prices at well above $6 per million cubic feet, more than twice the current cost.

The most dishonest claim is that wind and solar deserve to be wards of the state because the oil and gas industry has also received federal support. That's the $4 billion a year in tax breaks for oil and gas (which all manufacturers receive), but the oil and gas industry still pays tens of billions in federal taxes every year.

Wind farms in the Pacific Northwest -- built with government subsidies and maintained with tax credits for every megawatt produced -- are now getting paid to shut down as the federal agency charged with managing the region's electricity grid says there's an oversupply of renewable power at certain times of the year.

The problem arose during the late spring and early summer last year. Rapid snow melt filled the Columbia River Basin. The water rushed through the 31 dams run by the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency based in Portland, Ore., allowing for peak hydropower generation. At the very same time, the wind howled, leading to maximum wind power production.

Demand could not keep up with supply, so BPA shut down the wind farms for nearly 200 hours over 38 days.

It's the one system in the world where in real time, moment to moment, you have to produce as much energy as is being consumed," BPA spokesman Doug Johnson said of the renewable energy. 

Now, Bonneville is offering to compensate wind companies for half their lost revenue. The bill could reach up to $50 million a year.

The extra payout means energy users will eventually have to pay more.

"We require taxpayers to subsidize the production of renewable energy, and now we want ratepayers to pay renewable energy companies when they lose money?" asked Todd Myers, director of the Center for the Environment of the Washington Policy Center and author of "Eco-Fads: How the Rise of Trendy Environmentalism is Harming the Environment."

Time to end wind tax credit

3/04/2012 by Amy Oliver Cooke and Michael Sandoval, The Pueblo Chieftain

…Former Xcel Energy CEO Wayne Brunetti outlined the real limits of wind power production when he told an audience in 2004 that at the utility company “we’re a big supporter of wind.”

“But at the time when customers have the greatest needs, it's typically not available,” he lamented, acknowledging the most critical shortcoming of the alternative energy source.

Plus, he added, the intermittency of wind drastically reduced a given installation’s capacity by a factor of 10-1, making fossil power plants a necessity for backup.

Of course, this was before environmental activist turned former Public Utilities Commissioner Chairman Ron Binz convinced Colorado voters to mandate a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that Binz estimated would be 96 percent wind...

Colorado’s residential electric rates have skyrocketed 50 percent to 11.04 per Kwh.  Based on Department of Energy statistics, states with an RPS endure 30 percent higher electric rates, and the rest of the country pays as well through the PTC.

On the practical side, available wind is never near load centers — where the people actually live — and, as Brunetti told the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee in 2005, transmission costs from remote areas often exceeded the price tag of the wind project itself.

The government has finally seen through the wind-farm scam – but why did it take them so long?

To the nearest whole number, the percentage of the world’s energy that comes from wind turbines today is: zero.  Despite the regressive subsidy (pushing pensioners into fuel poverty while improving the wine cellars of grand estates), despite tearing rural communities apart, killing jobs, despoiling views, erecting pylons, felling forests, killing bats and eagles, causing industrial accidents, clogging motorways, polluting lakes in Inner Mongolia with the toxic and radioactive tailings from refining neodymium, a ton of which is in the average turbine — despite all this, the total energy generated each day by wind has yet to reach half a per cent worldwide.

If wind power was going to work, it would have done so by now.   The people of Britain see this quite clearly, though politicians are often wilfully deaf.  The good news though is that if you look closely, you can see David Cameron’s government coming to its senses about the whole fiasco.  The biggest investors in offshore wind — Mitsubishi, Gamesa and Siemens — are starting to worry that the government’s heart is not in wind energy any more.  Vestas, which has plans for a factory in Kent, wants reassurance from the Prime Minister that there is the political will to put up turbines before it builds its factory…

In Britain the percentage of total energy that comes from wind is only 0.6 per cent. According to the Renewable Energy Foundation, ‘policies intended to meet the EU Renewables Directive in 2020 will impose extra consumer costs of approximately £15 billion per annum’ or £670 per household. It is difficult to see what value will be got for this money. The total carbon emissions saved by the great wind rush is probably below 1 per cent, because of the need to keep fossil fuels burning as back-up when the wind does not blow.  It may even be a negative number…

Though they may not admit it for a while, most ministers have realised that the sums for wind power just don’t add up and never will. The discovery of shale gas near Blackpool has profound implications for the future of British energy supply, which the government has seemed sheepishly reluctant to explore. It has a massive subsidy programme in place for wind farms, which now seem obsolete both as a means of energy production and decarbonisation.  It is almost impossible to see what function they serve, other than making a fortune from those who profit from the subsidy scam.

Even in a boom, wind farms would have been unaffordable — with their economic and ecological rationale blown away.  In an era of austerity, the policy is doomed, though so many contracts have been signed that the expansion of wind farms may continue, for a while. But the scam has ended.  And as we survey the economic and environmental damage, the obvious question is how the delusion was maintained for so long.  There has been no mystery about wind’s futility as a source of affordable and abundant electricity — so how did the wind-farm scam fool so many policymakers?...

“Though PacifiCorp says it does everything possible to manage costs, its representatives are telling Utah customers to expect rate increases nearly every year for the next decade as it makes capital investments to clean up coal plant emissions and build wind farms, transmission lines and natural gas plants..."

[Editor’s note: "Part 1 of this case study addressed the false claim that wind has any appreciable impact on reducing coal-fired generation. This part focuses on the little known considerations relating to the effect on nuclear plants that must be cycled to balance wind, which counters claims that wind power improves general health.]

“Excessive baseload generation largely due to a contractual requirement to buy all available wind output might make it look like wind is supplying an increasing fraction of the energy supply (in TWh), while the nuclear supply appears to be decreasing. But in reality, the reduction in Bruce B unit output to permit this fallacy cannot be justified economically, nor is it a wise and conservative operation of a nuclear station.”

The following eight charts extracted from the Sygration website, which allows plotting of the Ontario IESO electrical generating unit performance, demonstrate that not only are wind turbines ineffective to replace coal, in actual fact, they do considerable harm to the stability of the electrical supply, and increase the risk of upset and accident at a nuclear generating station...

Meaford council has approved a resolution put forward by Deputy Mayor Harley Greenfield which calls for Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty to invoke an immediate moratorium on the construction of wind turbine installations in Ontario for one year, with a provision for yearly extensions as required.

“Now therefore be it resolved that Council of The Municipality of Meaford does hereby support the Municipality of Arran-Elderslie and the other many municipalities across the province who share these concerns regarding the damaging and devastating repercussions within our communities, and hereby request the Premier to invoke an immediate moratorium of one year, with yearly extensions as required on the construction of Industrial Wind Turbines within the Province of Ontario until the concerns noted above are properly studied and addressed,” read the final paragraph of the resolution…

[Editor Note: This case study of Ontario, Canada (one of the least emissions-producing electricity systems in the world) by a veteran energy engineer uses available data to shed light on unfounded claims about industrial wind turbines. Some aspects of the Ontario situation are unique, but many considerations are applicable to all countries/states/provinces. Part II concludes this case study tomorrow.]

“Even while wind was at peak operation, the coal generators served as backup (at low load) to be able to respond rapidly to the anticipated, and actual, drop in wind output that occurred just hours later.”

It has been claimed that industrial wind turbines allow Ontario to shut down coal-fired electrical generating stations. But the facts reveal this to be a myth...

In the first of a three-part series, we look at the political shifts causing investors to doubt Britain's commitment to wind.

The government and energy industry have quietly shelved plans for windfarms … amid growing public and political anger over the cost …of the turbines...

Responding to the latest cost figures, Chris Heaton-Harris, the Tory MP who co-ordinated the letter to David Cameron, said:  

 "The more the true full cost of wind energy is exposed the more you have to ask why we continue to back such an expensive and intermittent source of energy.  All this money ends up coming from consumers at the end of the day and this raises the question: how many people will be forced into fuel poverty because we continue with such a high level of direct and indirect subsidy to the wind industry?"